A new Labour MP’s maiden speech to Parliament has been lauded as “utterly wonderful” after tearing in to the establishment of Parliament
Laura Pidcock, the new MP for North West Durham, argued that “the intimidating nature of this place is not accidental”.
Pidcock, whose Labour predecessor Pat Glass retired at the General Election, said: “Turning to this place, this building is intimidating. It reeks of the establishment and of power; its systems are confusing—some may say archaic—and it was built at a time when my class and my sex would have been denied a place within it because we were deemed unworthy.
“I believe that the intimidating nature of this place is not accidental. The clothes, the language, and the obsession with hierarchies, control and domination are symbolic of the system at large.”
Pidcock also spoke of her anger at the Tories on behalf of her constituents.
She said: “But the most frustrating thing has been to sit opposite those people who tell me that things are better, and that suffering has lessened for my constituents.
“I would like them to come and tell the people who have been sanctioned that things are better. I would like them to tell that to the teacher in my constituency who was recently made redundant. I would like them to talk to the 16,500 people in County Durham in receipt of food parcels. I would like them to talk to the nurses, the junior doctors and the firefighters—come and tell them that years of austerity have improved their practice or their profession.”
She concluded: “I will end with this: we can choose, in this place, to be self-obsessed, to perpetrate fear and greed, to be a monument to injustice, or this can be a place that elevates equality, facilitates the power of the people, and esteems and properly funds a rich network of public services so that nobody is left in the indignity of poverty.”
The speech earned her the admiration of many on social media...
Earlier this month Pidcock spoke of how a generation of young people feel like “failures” as they can’t realise the “impossible dream” of buying their own home.
She said affording the deposit for her first home is “out of reach”, even on her £76,000 MP salary, due to debt from university.
Pidcock, who rents a property in the private sector, said she “would love a council house” but “there aren’t enough”.